The Rise and Fall of Lehman Brothers

Abstract This chapter begins by introducing the history of the status of Lehman Brothers in the financial world. It discusses the ranking of Lehman Brothers and the revenues recorded in 2007 and contrasts that to the status of the company in the following year. The fall of Lehman, the chapter argues, nearly took with it the entire global economy. The chapter goes on to argue that even though the company’s fall was spectacularly rapid, Lehman’s rise before that was far more storied and measured. It presents thorough detail on the rise of Lehman Brothers from the beginnings when Henry Lehman emigrated from Rimpar in Germany to the United States in 1844 to the time of the company’s dramatic demise in 2008. The chapter asks: why did Lehman fail? There were many reasons, the text of this chapter argues, and the responsibility for that failure is shared.